Different
by Lillielle
Summary: Disclaimer: I own nothing. Luna's not a girl and not a boy, and what can fae be, really, when it comes down to it? Faerself, that's who.


_i._

When you're three years old, you look up at your mother and father with solemn grey eyes, too big for your face, and declare that you aren't a girl.

"Are you a boy, then?" your mum asks you, not scornful, not angry, simply curious. You chew on the end of one loose braid for a moment before shaking your head. "Do you know what you are?" your mum asks, and you shrug. You're different, that's all. You're not a girl and not a boy, and is it all right for you to float in between, or outside the boundaries at all? Your father looks at you in confusion, his eyebrows scrunched down over his eyes, but your mother simply laughs and picks you up, placing you on her lap and smoothing wispy blonde bangs.

"It's all right," she whispers in your ear as she pulls your favourite book to her, opening it up to the first page. "Be whoever you want to be, Luna. Be who you _are._"

_ii._

When you're six years old, Pansy Parkinson calls you a freak, and you run home crying, your bare feet slapping up spurts of dust, and your eyes so blurry, you almost run into a fence post. Your mum finds you in a corner of the kitchen, your head buried in your knees.

"What's wrong?" and you pour it out, the way her eyes lit up with malicious satisfaction, the way you admitted you don't like playing dolls, you'd rather play faeries, everything and nothing, in a cascading rush of words, and your mother wraps you up in your favourite woolly blanket and tells you that it doesn't matter what other people say, if you know who you are yourself. "You can be anyone," she says and kisses your forehead. "And by the way, have you thought of using fae to refer to yourself?" You bite your lip as you ponder and then nod, a slight smile tipping up the corner of your mouth.

_iii._

When you're nine years old, your mum goes away in a cauldron explosion, and nothing is ever the same. You're there when it happens, and your father rushes in to see you standing in the corner of the kitchen, your bare feet flecked with substances he'd rather not identify, and your thumb tucked in your mouth. You won't speak for a week and when you do, your voice is so cracked, it makes him wince to hear it.

"I'm sorry," he whispers every night as he tucks you in, and you wish he'd stop, you want to tell him he's not fixing anything, he's not helping, but there are no words. There never are.

_iv._

When you're eleven years old, you get your Hogwarts letter, and your first thought after the initial flush of excitement has worn away is where you are going to sleep. You pose the question to your father, but he doesn't know, and so you compose a response to Professor McGonagall in your best handwriting, though it straggles away down the page. Her reply is succinct and baffled: "in the girl's dorm, where else?" but she doesn't see the tear splotches that stain the parchment, or the way you curl up in bed with your favourite blanket and wonder where exactly you fit in a world made of girls and boys.

When you get to Hogwarts, the girls' dorm won't let you up the stairs, and instead you discover another door beneath them, and it's like a hobby-hole of magic, and even though the other first years laugh at you and whisper behind your back that you're loony, you can't bring yourself to care.

_v._

When you're thirteen years old, you hex a girl who keeps calling you "she" until she turns bright blue, and even though you're ashamed of yourself, you're proud, too. When Professor Flitwick asks why, you tell him that you're not a girl, and nothing will ever make you a girl, and you'd like to be called 'fae', if you please, and not 'she.' He looks at you in bafflement and even though you keep your head up high, you feel your heart crack just that little bit more.

Your body swells and curves beneath your robes and you hate it, you hate all of it, and Madam Pomfrey catches you stealing potions one night in the Hospital Wing, but instead of taking them away or giving you detention, she takes you back into her office and explains the proper way to use them instead. After three months, Susan Bones says you look as flat-chested as a boy, and you beam at her and say "Thank you" and skip away.

_vi._

When you're sixteen years old, the war's on, and there's blood and pain and fright everywhere, and you hate all of it, and even though you fight, there's always something else. And when the Carrows call you a freak, your eyes glitter and you respond proudly, "_Thank _you," and you can see the fear on their faces, even though they'll never admit it.

You're different, and you know you are, and you don't fit in the world, but maybe you do, in your own little niche, and when the war is over, and the sunlight washes over the Great Hall, you smile, because what else is there to do?


End file.
